MythBusters Episode 42: Steel Toe-Cap Amputation, Bottle Rocket Blast-off
Air Date: November 9, 2005
Steel-toe boots are more dangerous to your toes than normal boots when a heavy weight is dropped on them. Whereas a normal boot would just crush your toes, a steel toe would curl and crumple in, cutting your toes off.
busted
Using similar tests to those used to test steel toe boot certification, Adam and Jamie determine that your toes are much safer with steel toe boots than without. There was no toe-cutting curling of the steel toe, and even using a blade attachment didn’t work, only glancing off the steel toe to cut right above where it ended.
According to a Japanese trivia game show, it’s possible to use fifteen 3-liter sized water bottle rockets to launch a human 40 meters.
busted
While bottle rockets, on their own, could launch 1/15 of Kari’s weight a fair distance, their combination into one super-rocket system did not have enough thrust to give the crash test dummy the trajectory or distance stated by the television show, and was considered too dangerous by paramedics to feasibly launch a human being. More bottle rockets proved only to add to the difficulty and complications. The Build Team also found that water cooler jugs, while able to launch higher at the standard air/water ratio for water bottle rockets, were weaker than standard soda bottles, failing at around 60 psi (413 kPa) less than the soda bottles (90 as opposed to 150 / 600 kPa as opposed to 1000 kPa).
I had the steel toe boot thing explained once. For normal weights that would merely break toes, the steel toe is meant to deflect the blow. When you get to weights that would start to crush things, the steel toe is meant to actually sever the toes, because severed toes are easier to reattach than those that have been squashed. But this feature doesn’t happen until you’ve dropped a couple of tons on your toe.
June 23, 2007 at 12:59 AMThey actually did use enough weight to crush the steel toe entirely. It still didn’t sever any part of the foot. The weight merely crushed the toes under the steel portion.
June 23, 2007 at 4:23 AMA steeltoe boot when trapped in rotating machinery, might try to amputate part of the foot as the tip is pulled away from the boot. It is a accident that has happened to oilfield wireline workers, as they work near rotating wireline drums. There is a policy that the drum has to be stopped when there is a need to go near them.
June 23, 2007 at 4:43 PMAn idea for revisiting the bottle rocket myth, the dummy was placed flat on the bottle rig. What if the bottle rig was producing thrust towards the dummy’s feet?
August 18, 2007 at 10:55 PMOkay, regarding this episode which I watched last night, I must say I am disappointed that the drop test didn’t try an angle drop test which is more like the real world. Normally it would be very unlikely for a weight to drop directly on the steel toe for any boot. So why didn’t you try a test that involved an angle of the toe? And the rocket myth, personally I think it is do-able, but I don’t believe the team did enough to make it work. There is alot of pressure released during that kind of reaction taking place with water and air, it is after all explosive. I seriously think it needs to be revisited.
October 9, 2007 at 10:07 PMSteel toe boots will save your foot period!On 10/20/07 a 18 ton broderson crane’s outrigger which goes down on a 45 degree angle landed on my foot crane weighs 4-5 ton.Result boot ruinedfoot big toe broken in 5 spots foot badly swollen.No steel toes half of foot would have been sqaushed into jelly.Please where them they will save your foot.
October 24, 2007 at 9:22 PMSteel-toe boots are considered part of what is called PPE(Personal Protective Equipment) and should be worn by all workers. Then, if something does happen your covered by your workplace insurance. You might be considered negligent,if you choose not to wear any part of your PPE!!
October 29, 2007 at 1:31 AMI’ve had steel toe boots with the cap loose in the leather,I had a heavy container on wheels roll up against the boot one day causing the cap to back up inside the boot far enough hurt the top of my foot pretty bad,if I had been on uneven ground it is possible the cap could have tilted enough to do more damage with the weight pushing it into my foot,I believe in steel toe boots but they need to be inpected for defects just like any other saftey equipment
December 20, 2007 at 12:12 AMDarryl – perhaps you should also consider boots with metatarsal protection that will cover the top of the foot as well as the toes.
December 20, 2007 at 3:34 PMWhen I watched this episode I got bored and I turned it off.
December 21, 2007 at 8:36 AMI had a fork truck with a pallet, one inch off The ground, facing me at a 45 degree angle down. While I was reaching to grab a bag off of the pallet, the operators foot slipped off of the clutch, and ran over my foot. The pallet hit the steel toe, and pinned my foot to the floor. As it came foreward it rolled the steel cap over and shoved the corners of it through the sole of the boot.The top of the cap cut a minor gash acrossed the base of my toes. If it had not stopoped when it did, It would have cut them off. Never walk close to equipment that is running.Your never completly safe.
January 14, 2008 at 1:01 PMthe water bottle rocket looked so awsome my friend and I are doing it for our science fair project! exept we are gonna fire ourselfs straight up not forward…
February 11, 2008 at 1:45 PMBottom line is that your toes are safer in steel-toed shoes than not – PERIOD! I have seen the research and injury data… I had a friend who argued he didn’t want to wear a seatbelt in his car because he might run off of the road into a creek, pond, or river and dround. I told him, that if he hadn’t noticed there were a lot more pine trees and concrete barriers around than water. The same goes for steel-toed shoes. Wear them, they make a bunch of sense.
March 3, 2008 at 4:43 PMi think the air+water rocker was heaps cool and im gona bild on at home and try to get my teacher to do it in a since leson but i think that the dummy wight more then what carey wights.
April 15, 2008 at 6:09 AMWhat about composite toed boots?
May 2, 2008 at 8:36 AMThere is a local guy building water bottle rockets easily hitting 200 M, or for our backwards neighbors over 600 feet.
May 2, 2008 at 6:55 PMAs a construction safety professional for over 20 years I have seen numerous foot / toe injuries. All but one (30 estimated total) involved substantial injuries of the foot without steeltoed boots. The only one with steeltoes caused trauma to the metatarsal region of the foot. 5 of the above lost parts of the foot, except for the metatarsal injury. He was fine. Steel toes are worth wearing, unless you are fond of pain and look good with a limp.
June 27, 2008 at 1:15 PMdoes any 1 have plans 4 the bottle rockets
August 23, 2008 at 2:32 AMNot for you. I wont have your death on my concience/ darwin awards book.
August 27, 2008 at 12:31 AMHow many accidents are caused by the added weight/lowered mobility of work boots over running shoes?
September 25, 2008 at 9:31 AMIn general one should take these tests with some television-minded understanding. I have a friend who saw when a guy got his toes cut of in his steel-toe shoes by a rail waggon loaded with a sailboat. So the busted is busted. No scientist would say these mythbusting tests are accurate, but from television point of view fun to watch…
October 28, 2008 at 10:20 AMI have work in the steel industry for the last decade and have had material land on my feet and would you believe it the items that fell by the time it reach my foot was heading strait for the center of the Earth, thats right strait down. There was an ocasion where a large beam was moving at an angle but the individual in the path decided to catch it with his neck…. My first experience with toe protection was a pair of Vans shoes. I was in an old wharehouse looking for something the Boss needed and in the dark a large piece of metal fell of the edge of a counter and my foot had magicaly caght that item, after doing the irish jig of “O’ crap, O’ crap” and jumping up and down like id just won the lottery on 1 foot, i was rushed to the clinic by my i think legal citizen and personal assistant Pablo.
January 20, 2009 at 12:21 PMAt the Clinic they drilled a hole through my toe nail to relieve the preasure and bleed me. The toe nail eventually fell off and something that reminds of “dawn of the dead” grew back. Since that day i have worn steel toe boots and have had several occasions where Item fell, hit steel toe, i said “oh im glad i got steel toed boots” and just got my day on. Most of the time my foot had been where it shouldn’t have and thats the bigest problem. People who get there feet ran over by really really big things (2 tons or more)are standing in the wrong place just like the beam catcher i mentioned above, he was standing where everybody knew he shouldnt have and nobody told him to move………..
Is there any way I can view Episode 42 on steel toed work boots??
March 25, 2009 at 10:01 AMI recently watched this one on a re-run and was disappointed that what (to me) was the most common version of the myth… That a loaded forklift with solid rubber tires on a concrete warehouse floor running over your foot would indeed amputate if wearing steel toed shoes… it struck me as funny since in the episode there was a forklift sitting in the background, I thought for sure they would try that test, and mabey simulate in in an outdoor setting as well (ie a yardlift with soft tires in gravel or mud)_
September 26, 2009 at 6:06 PMi was ran over bye a forklift back in april of 2009. The steel in my boot started to come out the side of my boot. I could of lost my toes or part of my foot.But as of today 10/17/09 I still have my foot and toes.I don’t have the feeling in all of my foot or toes but the sec.. surgery is coming up soon. And I thank the people that invented steel toed boots
October 17, 2009 at 2:56 AMI work with horses and the “most common version” of the myth I know is that if a horse stepped on your foot while wearing steel toed boots, it would crush your foot and it would be stuck inside the boot. – I was glad to see this episode because I’m sick of hearing that I shouldn’t wear steel toe boots around horses.
November 4, 2009 at 10:34 PMTry this with 100 PSI in the bottles. It will launch any dummy the distance you want.
January 18, 2010 at 10:56 PMIn my youth, back in the mid Pleistocene, I was employed by the railways as a shunter. We were of course issued with steel caps, and rightly so. However, we wryly figured that if push came to shove and we were run over by 1700tonnes of lumbering rolling stuck and locomotives, the only bit left worth saving would be the well protected toes…
January 22, 2010 at 6:07 PMIn the bottle rocket scenes at the dock, there is a ufo visible ib=n the sky in the background.
February 3, 2010 at 5:40 AMI was recently injured at work wearing steel toed boots when a vehicle lift that goes into the ground failed and came down on my foot with a car on it and the steel toe of the boot curled and traped my toes when my foot got sucked into the ground by the falling lift
February 23, 2010 at 3:20 AMI LOVE THIS EPISODE!
February 23, 2010 at 6:40 PMI agree with the steel toe thing. Its always safer with em.
But they tested bottle rockets individually going straight up. The dummy was at an angle. At an angle, the water would not gather at the nozzle, and not propel the bottle because the air would flow freely out. You would need to put the bottles straight up or add more water. Also, the position of the dummy would change the results.
So….. Get to revisiting.
March 3, 2010 at 7:01 PM